Essays in Idleness

Congratulations, to us, that we have made it to midsummer alive, all of ye who may read this. It is appropriate that we celebrate Midsummer on its first day, when the sun lingers longest over the northern hemisphere. Should you have subscribed to global warming, you must consider that it may be too hot to celebrate, later; and after a few months of this, the seas may evaporate; and it appears that our forests have already caught fire.

Alternatively, you are sane, and cannot be frightened by the weather, much though it may irritate, from time to time. I exclude such as a friend of mine, who set out to traverse the Sahara on foot, back in 1977. He, I assume, evaporated (the human body being mostly water, like most of the foodstuffs it ingests, and may shrink into shoe-leather when left in the sun); but then, I doubted his sanity.

Dear Richard, for I will give him his name, wanted to contribute an adventure book to the English language, in the tradition of William Thesiger. I would rather have imitated Eric Shipton, or H. W. Tilman, for it is cool in the mountains, although I might be discouraged from climbing them by a fear of heights.

But whichever route he has chosen, one walks away from what is called “civilization.” This is a misleading term, applied by the simple-minded to cultures with indoor plumbing, and even to some with the plumbing outside. I apply it rather to religion and the arts, in both of which I seem to have minority tastes.

But whatever, “sumer is icumin in.” — Lhu-de sing cuc-cu!